From Rabbi White's Study

Rabbi Michael White

Gun Violence Claims Too Many Innocent Lives.
Come to Temple on Thursday Evening, March 8, to Learn
How to Stop It. I Need Your Help!

Why wasn't the Sandy Hook School massacre a wake-up call? How could we absorb news of 20 little children and 6 of their teachers slain and do nothing to stem the avalanche of gun violence in America? When Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly spoke to us at Temple Sinai, they told us that 93 Americans are killed with guns each day and Americans are 25 times more likely to be killed by a gun than in other developed nations. And now yet again we witness a river of blood in Florida. High school students and their teachers slain. How can we tolerate this abomination? And when do we become complicit in this ongoing slaughter, as it repeats over and over and over? As parents cry in unimaginable grief, over and over? As the images of funerals for children appear in the newspapers, over and over? When does our collective inaction become an accessory to their murder? It’s time for Temple Sinai to join the movement to reduce gun violence in America. Right now.

Rabbi Joel Mosbacher is a gifted rabbi and spiritual leader. He is also perhaps the most influential and important member of the clergy in the fight for sensible gun violence prevention in America. He came to this calling due to his own personal tragedy. Joel's father Lester was shot dead in a petty robbery in early 1999 on his way to work, the day before his 53 birthday. Today Joel advocates nationally for sensible legislation, hoping to prevent other families from such heartbreaking grief.

Again I ask you, please join us at Temple Sinai on Thursday, March 8 at 7:30pm to hear Rabbi Mosbacher speak. Local advocates will also be on hand. I hope it will convince us all of the work we must do.

Every one of us, every one of our children, is a potential victim. Our failure to enact such commonsense measures as background checks, limited restrictions on the most efficient killing machines and preventing easy access to criminals and the mentally challenged is to our great peril.

As the Talmud teaches, to save a single life is as if you save the entire world.